Internship Reflection

As an intern for the AJC Washington, D.C. Regional Office this spring, I had amazing opportunities to meet diplomats, learn strategies for advocacy, and ask questions to fascinating people. I appreciated working for an organization that directly advocates for me and the people that I care about. 

AJC is the largest organization I have ever worked for, so I was surprised to see how friendly and welcoming the AJC Washington, D.C. team was! My supervisor and everyone else on the team were happy to help me with any questions I had and ready to explain their work to me. I also had the chance to work with people on the national staff, and I enjoyed the opportunity to inquire about AJC’s diplomatic outreach and Congressional relations. I appreciated hearing about the work of other offices around the world and putting faces to names I had read on emails and press releases at the Ambassadors’ Seder! 

I spent most of my internship helping with various aspects of Ambassadors’ Seder planning. I called embassies, emailed board members, reviewed guest lists, decorated, and helped with all the last minute logistical adjustments a major event requires. It was a fascinating insight into all the moving pieces that make diplomacy possible at a large scale. At the Seder itself, I was privileged to hear Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States H.E. Oksana Markarova, AJC CEO Ted Deutch, and returned Israeli hostages Keith and Aviva Seigel speak. Each of their speeches will stay with me and with the ambassadors, diplomats, board members, and policymakers who I was privileged to meet at the Ambassadors’ Seder. At the end of the evening, it was clear that the hard work of the entire AJC staff more than paid off. 

As valuable as the AJC was to me during  my time here, I did not expect it to come up in my studies! As I was researching the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War for a paper, however, I found that AJC had played a leading role in sending aid to civilians in Biafra, organizing the American Jewish Emergency Effort for Biafran Relief, and advocating for the human rights of children caught up in violence and famine. Although the circumstances of this initiative were incredibly sad, learning about it made me feel so proud to be working for an organization that has stood up for what is right for more than 100 years. 

As an intern, I also attended several events hosted by the GWU Program on Extremism, where I was able to learn about a subject that has interested me for a long time: the history of the Jewish community of Iraq and how people in Iraq remember it. I was captivated to hear that many Iraqis have become curious about their country’s Jewish history from meeting Jewish people online, and that Iraqi Jewish intellectuals and artists are documenting the long history of their community from outside of Iraq. There are still extremely difficult obstacles to further Jewish engagement with Iraq, notably a 2022 law that criminalizes any form of normalization with Israel or relationships with Zionists. In the meantime, Iraq’s Jewish sites like the Tomb of Ezekiel are slowly deteriorating.  

In my future career, in whatever form it may take, I hope to take action to protect Jewish heritage in countries where the Jewish community has since faded and normalize Jewish history there. In my short time with the AJC, I have learned so much about Jewish advocacy, cultural diplomacy, nonprofit work, and teamwork that I am certain will serve me in my future goals.